Thiago Alcântara is hopeful Spain can improve against Russia in the World Cup last 16.
Photograph: David Ramos/Fifa via Getty Images

Iker Casillas lifted the World Cup coated in olive oil. He did from where Thiago Alcântara was sitting anyway. Spain against the Netherlands in Johannesburg in July 2010 is the biggest TV event in the country’s history and among the 15,605,000 people watching when the ball sat up in front of Andrés Iniesta 8,000km away were the country’s under-19s, together in the dining room at the Federation’s Las Rozas HQ north-west of Madrid, where they were preparing for the European Championship. Thiago remembers it well; he tells it well too. He stops, takes a deep, theatrical breath. Huuuh. “The pause,” he says. “That was the moment.

“Both teams were tired. Holland had their chances: we still had the fear from the Arjen Robben chance Iker had saved. There were nerves. You’re thinking: ‘Bloody hell, this is going to penalties.’ Suddenly, the ball’s there, and Andrés, and the goalkeeper is there, and everyone freezes. And then it turns out the way it turns out …

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“Total ecstasy,” Thiago calls it. “Plates fly into the air, food goes up, the olive oil flies, the knives and forks too. It was some party. Shirts off, jumping up and down on the tables. And when the final whistle went, everyone threw themselves into the pool. After the goal, we could barely see the rest of the game because the telly was covered in water and olive oil.”

He grins: “They passed us the bill for the damage.”

That was the second time Thiago had celebrated a World Cup success. In 1994 his dad, Mazinho, won the tournament with Brazil, a mini World Cup sitting atop the television ever since. Thiago was only three but recalls the celebrations. “I don’t remember the games but I remember my dad arriving in Brazil because all the family was waiting for him. It was huge. Football’s a religion there. He’s loved, idolised. At that age you have no idea why people are reacting like that. I remember them being very excited, and I was just happy my dad was home.

“I always loved football so much and I knew from a very young age I was going to be a footballer; I used to watch the way they did everything really closely. I lived with it.”

Thiago’s father joined Celta, bringing the family to Spain, and so, in 2010, he was celebrating again. “When we watched the 2010 final I wouldn’t say we felt part of the team as such but nor were we just fans. The sensation was that our colleagues had done something that, bloody hell, we want to do that as well. It generates a joy in you and also a desire, a hope that one day it could happen to you.”

Eight years on, it really could. Thiago arrived in Russia ready, loaded up with box sets. The midfielder arrived with high hopes and two of his fellow food-throwers from 2010: Rodrigo and Koke.

Koke has been before, in 2014, but this is Thiago’s first World Cup; against Morocco he made his first start at a major tournament. At 27, the outstanding player of his generation, runner-up at that 2010 Euros, an under-17 champion in 2008 and at under-21 level in 2011 and 2013, when he was the player of the tournament, it feels a little late. Yet he has no sense of lost time.

“I feel a much more important player now than before but that’s also because there’s been a generational change. There’s a group of players from the under-21s who are now a big part.”

What has not changed is his football, or Spain’s. That, at least, is the theory. But the start to this World Cup has, for the first time in a decade, brought a debate. Thiago played with Julen Lopetegui in the under-21s and he prefers to pass over all that happened, but the manager’s sacking and Spain’s unconvincing progress through Group B have created an uncertainty about their identity. The new manager, Fernando Hierro, asked whether they needed “more muscle”, then insisted that muscle was not really their thing but the fact the question was even posed was striking. Some are advocating a revolution.

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It can be hard to stick to a style when things are going wrong. “But it’s our way of playing,” Thiago says. “We have footballers to play that way. We also have a lot of footballers who are versatile and can play other styles: counterattack, longer balls. There’s variety.”

Thiago admits Spain, who play Russia in the last 16 on Sunday, are “not exactly where we wanted to be” and that five goals conceded are “too many” and that they have an “enormous margin for improvement”. They also topped the group and are on a theoretically easier side of the draw. “We have to focus on generating our football,” he says.

If others have doubts, there is a remarkable clarity about him. Listening to Thiago, it is easy to be convinced. Eloquent, analytical, direct, he not only symbolises Spain’s style; obsessed with the game, he also believes in it. Yet he welcomes in variety too and if there is a recurring word in conversation it is “adaptability”; he, after all, is a symbol of cross-fertilisation, too. Born in Italy to Brazilians, a volleyball player and a footballer, raised in and representing Spain, enamoured of English football and playing in Germany for Bayern Munich, the question then is what is he?

A Brazilian footballer? A Spanish footballer? A German one? “A footballer,” he says.

At heart, he says his game is about one thing: making his teammates better. It’s about ideas, intelligence. “Football’s always been cerebral. The most important thing is thinking fast. I have my personality, my style, but my development’s been about adapting. I’ve always wanted to learn in the areas where I’m most lacking.”

There is a breadth and authority to his analysis, a warmth as he talks about how the game is played elsewhere, the differences he sees. There is even a warning. “I’m generalising here,” he says. He knows there are nuances.

“Barcelona’s football education has concepts different to the Brazilian game and at Bayern you grow physically. I have my own way of playing but I showed from the start I could handle it. Physically I’m strong. What there is less of in Germany is technical quality, so that allowed me to make the difference. And I’ll always play according to the team’s needs. In Spain everything’s more tactical, more technical, with more possession. In Germany it’s more physical; it’s about the runs you make, the counterattacks and the German mentality is unique: whatever the score, you go to the 90th minute.”

And England? Even if he says the birth of his son means he is less likely to watch a Bournemouth-Huddersfield match these days, he is an avid viewer. “In England it’s as physical as Germany but it’s about the duels you win: defender against forward, midfielder against his opposite number. There’s more long balls, more players arriving in the area too. It’s not so much speed as strength. I love watching English football. It’s the league I most enjoy. And the national team have undergone a good transition: they have a very good team.”

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Don’t they lack a certain control in midfield, though? A player like him? “That’s your problem, not mine,” he says, grinning. “And anyway look at Liverpool’s midfield: Henderson, Milner, Chamberlain, they pressed like animals in the Champions League. They ate up the midfield. They were fantastic.”

Spain’s approach is different, and has been since Thiago watched them win the World Cup from Las Rozas. “Spain started to generate a very good playing style from Pep Guardiola’s arrival at Barcelona,” Thiago says. “Vicente del Bosque is intelligent and he takes the footballers that have that grounding with Pep and instils that: the way we train, the way we see football, and from there you see a style. He adds Xabi Alonso, Sergio Ramos, David Silva, players with quality to adapt. They start to have more of the ball, to lose that fury, which hadn’t been much use to them anyway.

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“There was a difference between what is original – what was happening at Barcelona – and the concept that already existed with the Spain team but I remember the under-15 and under-17 Spain teams and there were already good footballers who treated the ball well. The difference comes when you insist on that regardless of whether it brings [immediate] results. Spain play that way because we’re brought up with it, we feel more comfortable. More than us having an idea, it’s the clarity, the certainty. This is our style and we stick with it until the end.”